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Do People Receive Points For PDF's

I'm wondering if people receive rep points if/when something like a repair guide or teardown is downloaded as a PDF. If not should they? The reason for asking is that I downloaded "Sony Vaio PCG-7A2L Optical Drive Replacement" for further reference at a later time. I'm not ready to vote but I think it deserves points.

3 Replies

Unfortunately users pretty much only get reputation points for upvotes, accepted answers, guide likes, and guide completions. We don't have a good way of tracking clicks on resources =( You can drop them a comment, or upvote them for now, and downvote if it wasn't helpful later. You can also upvote multiple answers if you were worried about that ;)

I don't think enough people use them as a primary source, so it may not make sense to give someone credit for a PDF download. I'm sure most people prefer to use the app or mobile site, so PDF downloads are probably not a regular occurrence.

The problem with the PDF is they are set in stone until you generate a new copy and replace the existing copy you have. This isn't always possible as soon as a guide is revised, and the revisions can be major enough it's so different the old PDF is no longer helpful. The main problem is they are static and need to be refreshed so often they probably rarely get downloaded. They do have a use, but the uses that they do well are very limited.

Is it better then nothing if something happens (example: the guide gets retracted and the author doesn't think it's worth saving)? Yes. However, most of the guide here stick unless they are really messy and aren't worth trying to recover so that's rarely going to be the case.

It's more in terms of how it may not make sense since they are generally used as a backup or offline solution and that it's very unlikely a lot of people rely on them as a primary source. I've removed the irrelevant parts.

@sodel excuse me for having to clarify your question. Remember, I am old and need to understand what you are wondering about. So you downloaded the PDF guide for the optical drive replacement from here https://www.ifixit.com/Guide/Sony+Vaio+P.... Now you are wondering if the author of this guides receives points for that. If I am correct with this, then the answer is No. The author of the guide will have received 100 rep points once iFixit approves this guide (which sometimes takes years unless you are a student <hint> @sam@kelsea). The only points the author will receive after this is by anyone marking the guide as having been completed. If you like the guide and it helps you to finish your repair, mark it as completed to say thanks to the author.